


45 Miles to Calm The Fuck Down

by MistLaFey



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Driving, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Music, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Platonic Relationships, Some sort of unknown AU, Talking, author projection, driving as a coping mechanism, idk if that's worth a tag but there you go, kind of pale, mentions buzzfeed unsolved: true crime, my roommate is making me post this, roomie is a buttface tbh, they love each other and admit it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:33:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22690282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistLaFey/pseuds/MistLaFey
Summary: Karkat is having another anxiety attack, and Dave knows the routine by now. Get the keys, get the car, get on the road. Karkat will calm down enough to sleep in a few hours.
Relationships: Dave Strider & Karkat Vantas, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas
Comments: 1
Kudos: 33





	45 Miles to Calm The Fuck Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CentralFirstLibrary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CentralFirstLibrary/gifts).



Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you are having an ANXIETY ATTACK. You pace in your living room, waiting for your roommate, DAVE STRIDER, to put on pants and shoes. The waiting always, always makes it worse. You are fighting the urge to grab your keys and get in the car NOW. You know that if you do that you will push 90 on the interstate, all while a little voice in your head whispers  _ faster, go faster.  _ But logically, if you do that, you will get a ticket or crash the car. If Dave is in the car with you, however, he will keep you out of your head. 

When he emerges from the hallway, he picks your keys up from the bowl they sit in and open the door without saying anything or waiting for you. He has seen you like this before, and knows what to do. He has his phone charger in one hand, and tosses you the keys as he pulls a bottle of apple juice out of the fridge.

You pass him and head straight to the car, turning it on and pulling your seatbelt on. The gas tank is only half full. You’ll have to stop at a gas station before you get on the highway. You tell Dave this as he slips into the passenger seat. He nods, then plugs his phone into the dash. It enables the audio transmission and will charge his phone at the same time. He starts the playlist, clicking on a song that has a heavy bass so you can feel it in your chest. The volume isn’t loud yet, but you’ll turn it up once you hit the highway. 

Gas first. You can’t run out of gas, no matter how good you think that would feel. Dave has work at 3 tomorrow, and with it already being after midnight, it’s not likely either of you will get much sleep. You feel a mild twinge of guilt at the idea of Dave being tired at work, but you know he would stay up waiting for you to come home if you went without him. You aren’t allowed to go without him anymore.

The gas station is abandoned, nearly. Dave gets out of the car to pump the gas, and you go inside the little minimart to pay for it. While you’re there, you grab two chocolate bars and a bag of gummy worms. You hate eating while you drive, but by the itching under your skin it’s going to be a long drive. The sugar may help keep Dave awake. 

“Late night?” Asks the man behind the counter.

“YEAH,”  you nod,  “I THINK IT WILL BE.”  You ask him for $15 of gas on pump 3, and pay for the candy. You walk out of the mart, and Dave is back in the car. You slide in and pull away from the gas station, taking the first entrance ramp on the highway. The mile marker reads 3.01 and you know the route you’re going to take will take you up to at least mile marker 48. That’s forty five miles to get your heart out of your throat. Forty five miles both ways, at least. Assuming you don’t overshoot your exit and keep going past the state line on the way back. You might. You have. Tonight, you will again. 

It takes Dave less than three minutes to start playing the songs he knows you know all the words to. He knows you can’t resist singing along, not when you’re choking up on the steering wheel and have both hands on it. He starts with songs that you both know the words to, and sings along with you. The three-part harmony you perform with Dave and the playlist grounds you, and when Dave stops singing, he starts talking. You know it’s as much to keep himself awake as it is to keep you company. You start to smile again, but the stretch of road isn’t right yet so you keep looking. 

The playlist is over now, but you’re still not home so Dave starts playing anything with a decent beat. Some of it is his new originals, and you like those, but they don’t really help because it’s not something you know the vibe of yet. He falls back to the old standards, and you fall into conversation with him.

He talks about his newest projects and you listen, nodding as you provide input and offer suggestions. Somehow the two of you end up on the topic of kissing, and how much you both miss it. You haven’t been in a relationship in… god, a year and a half? It’s been longer for Dave. He talks about an ex that you don’t like, but have never met. You know that if you ever did meet the ex, you’d like to punch his lights out. You’d throw the second punch, because Dave will have beaten you to it. You smile in that crooked, self-deprecating way when you admit that your last kiss, much more recent than Dave had thought, more recent than your last relationship, was disappointing. He laughs, and you start to feel more like yourself. 

Your heart is no longer thrumming in your throat, and it is back in your chest but it is still not quite where it belongs. But you’ve burned through the half-tank of gas you bought at the start of the night, and your back is cramping, but your shoulders are loose and you can actually crack your neck instead of it just feeling tight so you start driving home. It’s the first time you’ve had a destination in three hours, and you start to wonder what these odd-hour excursions would look like on a GPS tracking map.

Having a friend like Dave is so, so important to you. You grew up alone, and when Dave was kicked out by his Bro, you got used to him being around quickly. You don’t like being alone anymore. You wonder how you would cope if you didn’t have Dave in the next room, probably wouldn’t. 

You pull into the driveway, and turn off the car. Dave swings himself out of the car and stretches. His back pops audibly. He reaches back into the car and gathers his things, the phone and charger, and the half-eaten bag of gummy worms. You sigh, pulling yourself out of the vehicle. Your shoulder pops when you rotate it, and you groan in relief. You walk into the apartment, then into your bedroom. Dave follows you and flops onto the floor with a couch cushion he stole from the living room for a pillow. Guess it’s sleepover night.

You flop into bed, and curl up on your side facing the wall. You queue up an old episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved you’ve already watched a million times, and you know it’ll put you to sleep easily.

“THANKS FOR COMING WITH ME, AGAIN, I GUESS.”

“you know its no problem dude”

And you do know that, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling guilty that you dragged Dave out AGAIN when he should’ve been sleeping. You feel guilty for burning that much gas in one night. You know your car desperately needs an oil change, and you wonder vaguely how many more of these drives you can get away with before you burn out the engine. If you keep up with that train of thought, you’ll only wire yourself back up again, so you take a deep breath and close your eyes. You listen to Ryan and Shane theorize about Kennedy and bullets that pierce two bodies and come out whole and men with umbrellas. You go to sleep, but not before mumbling,  “GOODNIGHT, DAVE. LOVE YOU.”

And Dave, from his position on the floor, says, “gnite man love you too”

Minutes later he laughs about something stupid on twitter, but you’re so close to sleep that you don’t move. You are warm, and Dave is with you and you are both safe. You outran the anxiety again, at least for this week. You promise yourself again that you will find a therapist, and that you will start therapy sometime this year. You are exhausted, and you’re asleep before Ryan Bergara debunks Madeline Brown’s affair with Lyndon B. Johnson.


End file.
